Irish food doesn’t often get the acclaim it deserves.
Irish celebrity chef Rachel Allen is changing that little by little all over the
world, literally. She was in Dubai last week and in NYC this week, and her fan
base continues to grow like wild fire. It’s
because she presents Irish cuisine with a breath of fresh air, including
modern takes on traditional dishes. St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner
so it’s the perfect time you to take another look at what she’s dishing in her
latest book, Rachel’s Irish Family Food.

I’m Irish — well, as Irish as a fourth generation American girl can be. We
grew up eating Irish family favorites like boiled ham and cabbage, pork and sauerkraut
with dumplings, and lots of mashed potatoes, which I still love. While pork is a huge part of the Irish diet, this
books shows that so is fresh seafood, like hot buttered lobster, trout, salmon
and mackerel — not to mention loads of shellfish.

I had to chuckle that
the first section of the book is titled “Soups and Light Meals.” With ingredients like heavy cream, melted butter, mayonnaise, cream cheese, crème fraiche along with elements like Hollandaise and fried chicken livers, the recipes in the section aren’t exactly
what most of us would categorize as “light.” No wonder I gained 10 pounds when
visiting Ireland. I was loving the light foods!

Even with my own family favorites,
I’ve adopted Rachel’s delicious homemade pork sausages with colcannon and her
brown soda bread into my family’s new favorite Irish recipes.

• Other highlights: Rachel also includes information and beautiful
images from the four provinces of Ireland, including the history and the food
culture from each. The dessert
section also includes such gorgeous images you’ll want to make all of them, now.

• Who would enjoy this book?
Of course anyone who is Irish would love this book
but also anyone interested in seeing modern and traditional Irish cuisine that
reaches far beyond boiled ham and cabbage.

Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf. However, the manufacturer did give us the product for testing and review purposes.

(Images: Maureen Petrosky)

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Maureen Petrosky writes what she knows: food, booze and parties. Author of "The Wine Club," "The Cocktail Club" and makerlifestyle.com, she's a regular on The TODAY show, where she shares her vices (and advice) with the world.